http://blogs.mediapost.com/online_minute/?p=1719

Above is the link to a post by Wendy Davis entitled, “Buzz Kill: CW Cancels ‘Gossip Girl’ Streams” where she announces just that, that CW has decided to no longer make free streams of the show available online.

Their argument, that the free streams have given their audience another alternative to watching the broadcast and has thus negatively impacted the ratings. And this despite the argument and research claiming just the opposite is true.

You’d think the Networks would have learned a thing or two from the record companies and their unsuccessful plight against downloading, legal or otherwise. Whether the networks realize this or not they have already lost this fight. They now have two choices, to embrace this new way of ingesting media and leverage it or even monetize it, or continue to lose market share.

People are now wanting and even expecting more control over the content they ingest. They want and are expecting to be able to watch it when they want to and at the pace they want to and through whatever means they want to. People no longer want to be a slave to the networks and their broadcast schedule. If you are not willing to relinquish that control, people will ultimately find a means of wresting it from you. You want to pull the episodes from your site? Fine, I’ll stop visiting your site and look for it elsewhere. Think I won’t find it? Willing to take that chance and alienate me all at the same time? Talk about a win-win combination.

The only thing networks are accomplishing by no longer providing free streaming of the full-length episodes is the following:
- Giving people less incentive to visit your site, guaranteeing yourself less visits, thereby making your site less attractive to outside advertisers.
- Denying fans the opportunity to watch their favorite episodes again, especially certain steamy scenes that I’m prone to forwarding to friends.
- Making it impossible for people like me who want to get into the show but haven’t the opportunity to catch up and perhaps become a coveted viewer. Now I’ll just have to wait until the entire season comes out on DVD and rent it.

Ok, so we’re in agreement that pulling the episodes entirely from the site probably wasn’t the best strategy. Here’s what CW should have done:

- Knowing that the streaming videos boast a lot of traffic, charge companies more to run online ads during them. That should counteract at least some of the shortfall. There’s arguably the traffic to justify it.
- Only stream the episodes a week after the episode originally airs. Teens can either watch the broadcast or risk being perceived as irrelevant when the latest episode is hotly discussed during recess.
- Stop streaming the episodes once the season ends. This way, it won’t bite into revenue from sales of the entire season.

XOXO,

Flightpath “Gossip Girl”